Author: Victor Hugo
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word to the Rue des Moulins, arrived at Cournet's, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule, by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still remaining at Cournet's. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the night there. They told our colleagues what had been settled respecting my proposition, and of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it appears that there was some doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and that Baudin in particular did not exactly remember it, and that our colleagues believed that the rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine o'clock in the morning, was fixed for eight.

This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and giving battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the heroic exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.

CHAPTER XX. THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY

Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it. It is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle. Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set himself this problem—how to commit a baseness equal to this magnificence. He succeeded.

This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete. Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust backwards that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of civilization been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the soil is strewn with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the Law, the Right of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor of the Soldier have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken place; there was the oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there is a rag; there was the Army, there is a band of brigands; there was Justice, there is treason; there was a code of laws, there is the sabre; there was a Government, there is a crew of swindlers; there was France, there is a den of thieves. This called itself Society Saved.

It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.

France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, "Stand and deliver!"

The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.

Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn, he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.

Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both of the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of brigandage are most agreeable men—Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt leads one to commit crimes.

Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.

THE SECOND DAY—THE STRUGGLE.

CHAPTER I. THEY COME TO ARREST ME

In order to reach the Rue Caumartin from the Rue Popincourt, all Paris has to be crossed. We found a great apparent calm everywhere. It was one o'clock in the morning when we reached M. de la R——'s house. The fiacre stopped near a grated door, which M. de la R—— opened with a latch-key; on the right, under the archway, a staircase ascended to the first floor of a solitary detached building which M. de la R—— inhabited, and into which he led me.

We entered a little drawing-room very richly furnished, lighted with a night-lamp, and separated from the bedroom by a tapestry curtain two-thirds drown. M. de la R—— went into the bedroom, and a few minutes afterwards came back again, accompanied by a charming woman, pale and fair, in a dressing-gown, her hair down, handsome, fresh, bewildered, gentle nevertheless, and looking at me with that alarm which in a young face confers an additional grace. Madame de la R—— had just been awakened by her husband. She remained a moment on the threshold of her chamber, smiling, half asleep, greatly astonished, somewhat frightened, looking by turns at her husband and at me, never having dreamed perhaps what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter abruptly into her rooms in the middle of the night under this disquieting form of an unknown person who asks for a refuge.

I made Madame de la R—— a thousand apologies, which she received with perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to forgive the refugee who had awakened her.

While chatting M. de la R—— lighted a capital fire in the grate, and his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him, and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an arm-chair.

During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife, which Madame de la R—— undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the "Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R——. On that evening (Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play Hernani.

I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud, gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of nightingales.

A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R—— had disappeared into their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed. I stretched myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle nest disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.

One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve of a battle between citizens there can be no sleep. I counted each hour as it sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there passed down the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I was lying, carriages which were fleeing from Paris. They succeeded each other rapidly and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from a ball. Not being able to sleep, I got up. I had slightly parted the muslin curtains of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness was complete. No stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence of a winter night. A melancholy wind howled. This wind of clouds resembled the wind of events.

I watched the sleeping baby. I waited for dawn. It came. M. de la R—— had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without disturbing any one. I kissed the child's forehead, and left the room. I went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so not to wake Madame de la R——. I opened the iron door and went out into the street. It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a milkwoman, with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on the pavement.

I have not seen M. de la R—— again. I learned since that he wrote to me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted. He has, I believe, quitted France. May this touching page convey to him my kind remembrances.

The Rue Caumartin leads into the Rue St. Lazare. I went towards it. It was broad daylight. At every moment I was overtaken and passed by fiacres laden with trunks and packages, which were hastening towards the Havre railway station. Passers-by began to appear. Some baggage trains were mounting the Rue St. Lazare at the same time as myself. Opposite No. 42, formerly inhabited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill posted on the wall. I went up to it, I recognized the type of the National Printing Office, and I read,

"COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MINISTRY.

"Interior           —M. de Morny.
"War                —The General of Division St. Arnaud.
"Foreign Affairs    —M. de Turgot.
"Justice            —M. Rouher.
"Finance            —M. Fould.
"Marine             —M. Ducos.
"Public Works       —M. Magne.
"Public Instruction —M.H. Fortuol.
"Commerce           —M. Lefebre-Duruflé."

I tore down the bill, and threw it into the gutter! The soldiers of the party who were leading the wagons watched me do it, and went their way.

In the Rue St. Georges, near a side-door, there was another bill. It was the "Appeal to the People." Some persons were reading it. I tore it down, notwithstanding the resistance of the porter, who appeared to me to be entrusted with the duty of protecting it.

As I passed by the Place Bréda some fiacres had already arrived there. I took one. I was near home, the temptation was too great, I went there. On seeing me cross the courtyard the porter looked at me with a stupefied air. I rang the bell. My servant, Isidore, opened the door, and exclaimed with a great cry, "Ah! it is you, sir! They came during the night to arrest you." I went into my wife's room. She was in bed, but not asleep, and she told me what had happened.

She had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. Towards half-past twelve, during that species of drowsiness which resembles sleeplessness, she heard men's voices. It seemed to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in the antechamber. At first she did not take any notice, and tried to go to sleep again, but the noise of voices continued. She sat up, and rang the bell.

Isidore came in. She asked him,

"Is any one there?"

"Yes, madame."

"Who is it?"

"A man who wishes to speak to master."

"Your master is out."

"That is what I have told him, madame."

"Well, is not the gentleman going?"

"No, madame, he says that he urgently needs to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo, and that he will wait for him."

Isidore had stopped on the threshold of the bedroom. While he spoke a fat, fresh-looking man in an overcoat, under which could be seen a black coat, appeared at the door behind him.

Madame Victor Hugo noticed this man, who was silently listening.

"Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?"

"Yes, madame."

"But what is it about? Is it regarding politics?"

The man did not answer.

"As to politics," continued my wife, "what is happening?"

"I believe, madame, that all is at an end."

"In what sense?"

"In the sense of the President."

My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,—

"You have come to arrest my husband, sir."

"It is true, madame," answered the man, opening his overcoat, which revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.